Of course, measuring impact is more tricky than measuring reach; pre-purchase impact requires lab-style A/B pre-testing, and purchase/post-purchase impact requires sophisticated site analytics linking onsite social media or traffic coming directly from social media content to purchase behavior. But these are the kind of hard ROI metrics we need, instead of the numbers of people tweeting whatever to whoever. Who cares?

If you can’t measure the impact, don’t measure it.

As Jim intimates, ultimately, it’s all about money, the rest is just conversation; the only question we need to answer is how much stock does social media shift.

Chartered psychologist specialising in consumer behaviour, wellbeing and technology. Certified CX professional experienced in Design Thinking. A researcher, writer and speaker, Paul is head of Digital Insight at SYZYGY.